I-O Data released its newest lineup of portable hard-drives under the HDPS-U series. The drives come in capacities of 160 GB, 250 GB, 320 GB and 500 GB in black and white shells. Connectivity includes USB 2.0 for transfer speeds of 43 MB/s, 39 MB/s (read/write).

The shell encloses a 2.5 inch hard drive which is protected from mechanical damage by a reinforced frame with rubberised corner grips. The unit weighs around 170g. The company will be shipping these drives by mid-December in Japan, with price tags of roughly US $110, $121, $166 and $221 depending on the capacities in the above order.

Although the bandwidth for USB 2.0 isn't 60 MB/s in each direction , it's not fixed to 30 MB/s /direction a-la PCI-Express (250 MB/s /direction /lane). Within its 60 MB/s limit, it can even be 59 MB/s up, 1 MB/s dn theoretically. Since those tests were conducted as read-speed and write-speed, those speeds given out don't look fishy.

Although the bandwidth for USB 2.0 isn't 60 MB/s in each direction , it's not fixed to 30 MB/s /direction a-la PCI-Express (250 MB/s /direction /lane). Within its 60 MB/s limit, it can even be 59 MB/s up, 1 MB/s dn theoretically. Since those tests were conducted as read-speed and write-speed, those speeds given out don't look fishy.